A-Cup Angst Ch. 10

Everyone got into their cars and followed the pulsating hairfly as it zipped through the air until it left Seattle, came to a trailer park, and began to silently hover over a very large trailer. Jamie surveyed the park. It looked like it was abandoned. His gut was gripped by dread, all the same. "Nova," he said, "get the gun and the ammo." The gynoid retrieved the rotary cannon and attached a new belt of ammo to it. The casters got out of the cars and spread out. They looked around. There was no trace of anyone living in the trailers, despite them looking like they had been parked there for quite some time.

They shared uneasy, questioning looks. Sandra lowered her window and quietly said, "Hey, the fucker needs to eat every other day and Seattle is not only forty miles away, but he also can't get back into the city limits. He probably ate everyone here."

Jamie nodded at her explanation and gestured for her to close her window. He took one last look at the park and focused all of his attention on the trailer that had a tiny, but pulsating, ball of sandy hair hovering above it.

Jamie froze at a sudden shift in the currents of magic that were permeating the atmosphere. The hairfly was sucked into the trailer itself and the casters gaped in surprise. The others turned to Jamie for orders but then the door to the trailer burst open. Jake Ryman, the vampire, stood before them and grinned like a madman. "I gotcha now," he said, brandishing the tiny lock of hair. "Can't hide him from me, anymore, you cunt! I'll get-" The vampire noticed the other people around him and roared.

"Fire," Jamie reflexively bellowed. Nova's concentrated fire was repelled by Ryman's shields for a second before the twins dispelled them. Ryman let out an inhuman snarl of agony and frustration as the hot lead poured into his body to rend it into tiny pieces. The Avenger suddenly jammed and everyone was startled by the ensuing silence. The vamp was still in one piece, nowhere near damaged enough for their bindings to sink through it. "Oh, fuckity fuck! Raw power!"

Jamie and the redheads unleashed several of their pre-stored power spirits to burn the vamp into a crisp. It worked but Jamie knew it to be a temporary measure, at best. They needed the body ripped wide open and the brain liquefied for the bindings to take. Nova was diligently working to clear the jam, but Jamie needed a backup plan. His eyes darted between the redheads and the cars and soon settled on the gorgeous vampire in the back seat.

He pointed at her and screamed, "Get out of the car and drain this vampire!" Jessica leaped out of the car with all of her inhuman speed and ran over to the vampire. She grabbed him with one hand, while the other was still busy cutting the flesh of her perfect thighs. A strange keening was heard from Ryman and then his body began to rapidly desiccate. In seconds, he was reduced to a dry husk that toppled over. A light breeze immediately began to scatter the cloud of pinkish dust that rose from the pile.

Nova cleared the jam and pointed the gun at Jessica who was still cutting herself with a grimace of pain on her face. Jamie glanced at his redheads. Their faces asked the same question that was going through his mind. "The fuck just happened," Jamie asked of Jessica.

"I drained him, per your orders," she said through teeth gritted with agony.

"I... I didn't know that could be done," Jamie said. He had yelled "drain" in a blind panic, but he had actually meant to say "distract".

"Neither did I," she said. She moved her hand to repeatedly slash her belly open.

Jamie took some comfort in seeing that she was still following his orders. "Stand on one leg," he said. She stood on her left leg and continued to cut herself. "Hop and cluck like a chicken." She obeyed. A low giggle of relief was heard coming from the three redheads. Jamie wiped the sweat from his brow. Jessica was still bound by the bindings.

"Do you feel any different," Rose asked, "now that you've drained a fellow vampire?"

Jessica seemed to adopt an expression of intense concentration and introspection, even as she kept clucking, hopping and self mutilating. "Yes," she said, after a few seconds.

Everyone's eyes bugged out. "Stop clucking and hopping and tell us how," Jamie said.

"My power feels doubled," Jessica said. "And I feel like all future power I'll ever get will be doubled, too. And the hunger... I feel like it's gone, but at the same time, I can feel it lurking in a dark corner of my being." Jessica closed her eyes and swayed to an imaginary tune. Her lips tightened into a grin. "It was such a strong presence, the hunger... It drove me on, like a slaver's whip... But now... It's like it's taken a leave of absence."

"Oh," Jamie said, clearly worried by her declarations, "that's all right, then." He cast questioning looks at the redheads. They wore the exact same expression of unease as him, but shrugged in response. The breeze dispersed the Ryman dust into nothingness. "Well, fuck it. We just saved up on some ammo and a very expensive set of restraints. Plus, we don't need to hand over another vampire to Section. It's all good, man. Let's go!"

They got back in the cars and drove away from the abandoned trailer park. After dinner, they retired to a motel to sleep, ordering Jessica to sleep naked in the car. Jamie then ordered Nova to sneak out the back window and creep around the building to keep a discreet watch on the sleeping vampire woman.

He called the Czech contact that had provided them with the bindings to ask her a question about vampires. He was told repeatedly that no vampire can be rid of the bindings, once they had been properly installed. Jamie asked her about a vampire draining another vamp and she replied her society only knew of a few other cases. It doubled the vampire's power and increased the time they can go without draining another's magic to decades, instead of years, but she insisted that draining another vampire did nothing to enable a vampire to escape the bindings.

Jamie bore an unhappy grimace. She sounded like a typical salesperson, eager to deflect any and all complaints away from their product. Her assurances inspired little confidence in him. He threatened to cancel his order of more bindings unless she told him the truth. She insisted she was telling the truth and Jamie cancelled his order and hung up.

He had trouble falling asleep. He was worried about the changes the vampire reported feeling. On the one hand, she claimed her hunger for life force and magic was gone, which was good. On the other, she claimed her power was vastly increased, which was bad as far as Jamie was concerned. He dwelled on her words until the wee hours of the morning, when sleep finally managed to creep up on him.

He was roused by Rose. She handed him a cup of coffee and he sipped at it. "What time is it," he asked, his voice hoarse.

"Half past ten. We decided to let you sleep in. We also took the time to interrogate Jessica and test her bondage to us." Jamie's eyebrows rose expectantly. "It looks like she is our slave, without question. The bindings are in there to stay."

Jamie grunted. "That's what everyone keeps telling me," he said. He climbed out of bed and stretched, nearly spilling his coffee. "Ah, fuck it! If the bitch does try to slip the bindings out of herself, somehow, we'll just have to launch her into the Sun." Rose chuckled at his comment. Jamie didn't feel much like laughing, himself. If Jessica ever did manage to get rid of the bindings, their only backup plan was to run for their lives.

Jamie went for a quick brunch, while Nova measured Jessica's body, declaring that her measurements were, indeed, perfect. Sandra and Helena went with the gynoid to find the vampire some clothes. The two of them chose the clothes and Nova examined them for size. It wouldn't do to have their secret weapon running around naked and attracting attention as soon as she got out of the car.

They got into their enhanced cars and drove back to the airport. They flew to Portland, their next stop on the hunt.

In Portland, one of the vampires had sacrificed her own family in order to turn. The bodies had been since cremated and Jamie and his gang found themselves plum out of relatives to track her by. The missing persons' reports yielded no pattern or clue and they found themselves with no way of finding her. The second vamp had also vanished without a trace, but he had left his family intact. When they were questioned about him, they claimed he had gone nuts.

After a whole day of charming everyone that knew either person, they finally got a weak clue. The male suspect, one Mark Thicke, had once taken a few work colleagues to a remote cabin for some stream fishing. After some more charm magic was applied, they managed to remember different and incomplete directions to the cabin in question.

Jamie huffed in frustration and set out to find this cabin. It was a long shot, but better than none. Jamie was glad he had decided to bring their SUVs along for the hunt. They were capable of handling all terrains, even without all the magic they were enhanced with, and the Wrangler's engine had been significantly beefed up in order for it to be able to keep up with the Cayenne and X5 in a high speed chase.

After a lot of annoying negotiating the steep, muddy, dirt roads, they found themselves on a hilltop, face to face with a log cabin. Jamie, in the grips of a sudden, strong terror, swore at the loss of the element of surprise as the door to the cabin exploded outwards and a woman charged at them. Jamie reflexively dispatched his stored spirits to undo her offensive spells. "Drain her," he said to Jessica. "Get the gun," he ordered Nova.

Both of them hopped out of the back seat and ran off in opposite directions. Nova retrieved the Avenger and stuffed an ammo belt into it, while Jessica ran over to the vampire, and drained her in two seconds flat. Her desiccated corpse toppled over and a cloud of pink dust rose. "Fuck," Jamie said.

"Ditto," Sandra said, gripping the wheel like it was a life preserver. Only then did the other two cars catch up to them.

They all got out and examined the heap of dust. They probed Jessica with questions about how she felt. She told them she felt like her power was again doubled and that her hunger is now so faint, she can't even imagine ever feeling it again.

Satisfied that she truly wasn't going to escape her bindings, they examined the log cabin. Their brows bunched up as they noted that it was freshly made. It was not something that has stood there for years. They also remembered that the directions Thicke's friends gave them all agreed the cabin is supposed to be down in the valley of a stream, and not on a hilltop. They examined the cabin, but found no trace of a second vampire living there. They did find a bag containing personal effects and wallets of five loggers that Nova said had been reported missing to the local police.

Jamie ordered them back to their cars. Nova was going to pass on the information about the loggers to the police, but only after they made sure there wasn't another vampire in the vicinity. They drove on, glad of their choice of vehicles, until they came to a second hilltop clearing. It gave them a good, all around view so they got out of their cars and took out their binoculars. They quickly spotted the cabin they were searching for.

Nova's optics allowed it to identify the man going in and out of the cabin as Mark Thicke, who had fallen off the grid, just like the rest of the vampire suspects. "Well," Jamie said, "that cabin must be the property of his blood kin. Shame this county doesn't have online access to its records. New tactic, everybody! We sneak up to the cabin, then Jessica goes over to the vampire and drains him. We watch and back her up, if necessary."

They spent twenty minutes trekking to the cabin and hid in the tree line encircling the cabin. They observed Thicke come out of the cabin, carrying a tin can and eating something out of it with a plastic spork. Jamie's brow bunched up in confusion. He was under the impression vampires didn't actually eat food. "Do you eat food," he whispered to Jessica.

Jessica nodded her head yes and said, "Life force sustains us, but without physical food, we would eventually turn into skin covered skeletons." She calmly awaited Jamie's order to go and drain Thicke of his life force and magic. Jamie felt something nagging at the edges of his awareness, but he couldn't identify it. Everyone was looking at him expectantly, except for Nova that was merely looking at him. Jamie fixed his eyes on Thicke, ignoring the rest of them. Something was wrong here. A tiny voice in the back of his mind whispered so and he needed to find out what it was before all hell broke loose.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus. He took a deep breath, held it and slowly let it out. He wasn't very nervous, or afraid, he was just frustrated that the message his instincts were trying to deliver to his conscious mind was so faint and... absent. Jamie startled and his eyes shot opened as he finally got it. He wasn't afraid. Usually, when he was in the presence of a vampire, other than the enslaved Stansfield, his instincts told him to get very, very lost and now they weren't saying anything.

Without conscious thought, Jamie stepped around the tree into full view of the man sitting on a stump in front of the cabin. Everyone followed Jamie and only his raised hand stopped them from attacking. Thicke stood up, his aura obscured, but his eyes lingered on the asian woman pointing a minigun at him and dragging a big cart of ammunition.

"Mr. Thicke," Jamie said, walking calmly towards the man, "we apologize for the intrusion, but we've come here to ask you if you are a vampire."

Thicke's eyes darted between them. Finally, he said, "Fuck you, fuck Section and fuck The Suit!" He tossed his can aside and stepped forward, proud and defiant. "I don't answer to any of you!"

"We are not with Section and I agree with your sentiment about The Suit," Jamie said pleasantly. Then his demeanor became dangerous. "However, I am here and I am asking a question. I will have an answer."

"I didn't ask for the fucking ritual," Thicke shouted. "I didn't ask for it and I didn't perform it, neither!"

Jamie wanted to threaten the man into submitting to an examination, but then realized he had no way of determining if he was or wasn't a vampire. He had just stepped before the man without a game plan. He cursed himself inwardly. What was he supposed to do? Drag him to the nearest enclosed structure and see if he can go inside it? Jamie realized that was exactly what he needed to do. He adopted his most menacing expression and said, "You are coming with us to be tested for vampirism."

"Fuck you," Thicke replied. "I'm a free man on my own property and I've got every right to drop you for trespassing! Now, fuck off before I do just that!"

A flash of ethereal light went from Rose to Thicke. Jamie recognized it as her unleashing one of her stored up Rose spirits of sorcery upon the man. Thicke fell to his knees and wheezed.

"Jessica," Jamie said, "pick him up and carry him with us to the cars." The vampire picked up the incapacitated man and carried him to the cars. They drove back to the first cabin, where they had found the woman vampire and parked. They roused Thicke and told him to enter the cabin, if he was able. He glared at them the whole time, and protested against violating private property, but he didn't really have it in him to defy them, not with his magic choked off from him. He entered the cabin and immediately ran through it to jump out a window in the back and run away.

On Jamie's order, Jessica chased him down in a matter of seconds and brought him back. "If you refused the ritual, then why did you leave your home and job," Jamie asked.

"Because the Apocalypse is coming, you idiot," snarled Thicke. "Vampires are rising, sacrificing people! Soon, Section is going to use nukes to stem the flood of sacrifices, disguising it as power plant accidents. I came here to survive! This place is out of the blast range and safe from fallout!"

Jamie laughed at the man as he finally got a handle on him. He was a survivalist. Thicke glowered at the younger man that was laughing at him. "Do you know what this is," Jamie asked between chuckles. He pointed at the cabin behind them. Thicke gave the cabin a glance over his shoulder and then resumed glaring at Jamie. "This is the cabin that a vampire just had built for herself." He pointed to the dwindling pile of pinkish dust. "And that was the vampire!"

Thicke regarded the pile with suspicion as Jamie roared with laughter. The rest of his gang joined in, now that the irony had been pointed out. Jamie had Jessica let go of Thicke and they got in their cars to leave. The older man kicked at the dust pile and then watched them drive away with an expression of horror dawning on his face.

They carefully drove down the hills, still chuckling at the man moving to safety within a mile of a vampire. Nova untraceably notified the authorities about the missing loggers' wallets and they tore down the freeway towards Portland. They got on their jet and loaded their cars into a hired cargo plane. They took off towards California and the remaining five vampire suspects.

Jamie sat in his seat and chuckled. "I can't believe vamps turn to dust when snuffed," he said, shaking his head. "It's just like an episode of Buffy." He laughed out loud and then turned to his vampire captive. "Did it feel different for you to snuff them? Compared to your human victims, I mean."

"Yes," Jessica said. "I could feel their energy was very different as soon as I touched them."

Jamie nodded at her explanation and then his brow bunched up. "Wait, wait, wait! You can tell if someone's a vamp by touch?" Jessica nodded in the affirmative. "Why the fuck didn't you just tell us Thicke wasn't a vamp!?"

"Because I fucking hate you," Jessica calmly said. "You are holding me prisoner and I want to sabotage your efforts at every opportunity." Upon saying that, Jessica's expression turned into one of pure panic.

Jamie snorted a bitter laugh and shook his head to himself. It was stupid of him to assume she'd cooperate with them. He ordered her to never drain a person she could feel was human under her touch. Then he remembered the trick with the bindings. They made the vamp obey every order anyone gave them. Jamie had ordered her to never drain anyone, but she drained Ryman as soon as he inadvertently gave her that order. Her blind obedience to any order given meant that they weren't going to be able to keep her around as a useful tool.

He sighed and decided to use her to drain the remaining five vamps. It seemed the better choice to him. If he took them all prisoner with the bindings, then he'd have to spend years babysitting them until they starved. Having them drained permanently solved the problem of their existence. After that, he'd just have to come up with a solution to Jessica Stansfield. In the wrong hands, she could be a weapon of mass destruction. He wiped his face tiredly and shelved the problem for the time being. They still had five monsters to catch.

All five proved to be vampires and easily tracked. They stayed in homes owned by a family member and Jamie and Rose's Jedi senses could feel the presence of a vampire from dozens of yards away. After they sensed it, they simply had Jessica walk up to the door, ring the bell and drain the vampire into dust, if they were an actual vampire. All five people who answered the door were vampires, but didn't manage to resist Jessica draining them. Jamie surmised that draining vampires made her unbeatable by other vampires. Within a week, they were in the air, flying back east to their home town where Martin and Jessica Johansson also lived.